Have you ever asked yourself how you did end up with the email account that you are currently using? Chance is that you have at least one account at one of the three most popular web based email service providers Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Windows Live Hotmail (now known as Outlook).
Update: We have updated the information in this comparison article to reflect changes as of March 2017.
This question might have become insignificant in recent years as all three email providers have started to follow suite if one of them improved a limit, or introduced a new service. But not everything is equal, and some email users might be surprised if they take a look at the differences between these email providers.
Did you for instance know that a free Yahoo Mail account expires after four twelve months of inactivity but is the only one to offer 1 Terabyte of storage space for emails?
Gmail on the other hand is the only email service that is not expiring the account after a certain time of inactivity.
It is on the other hand the email service that is offering the least amount of free storage space if you take Microsoft by the word that they increase the Windows Live Hotmail storage space automatically if the limit of 5000 Megabytes is reached (update no longer true).
Take a look at the following chart to see how the three email providers compare.
outdated information, see below for update
The chart should be up to date. If you spot an error let me know and I fix it asap.
Update: Below is an updated chart (as of March 2017).
| Feature | Gmail | Outlook.com | Yahoo Mail |
| storage space | 15 GB | 15 GB | 1 TB |
| additional storage | yes, paid | yes, paid | no |
| message limits | 50 MB, Google Drive for larger files | 25 MB (option to add storage accounts) | 25 MB (100 MB attach large files feature) |
| custom from address | yes | yes, paid only | yes, paid only |
| domain name customization | yes | yes, paid only | yes, paid only |
| access options | POP3, IMAP, WEB | POP, IMAP, WEB | POP, IMAP, WEB |
| ads | yes | yes | yes |
| virus scanning | yes | yes | yes |
| account expiration | no | 12 months | 12 months |
| mobile apps | Android, iOS | Android, iOS, Windows 10 | Android, iOS |
| remarks | crawls emails for ads | paid version, without ads, extra features | paid version, without ads, extra features |
Back to the original question: Which email provider are you using primarily and why? Here is my answer..
I mainly use email accounts that have been created for my web projects. I also use a Gmail account; Primarily because it is linked to other Google services that I need to use. I do have a Yahoo Mail and Microsoft Live Hotmail account but I barely use them. Mostly for services that require such an account.